Date updated: Tuesday 21st July 2020
- Key coronavirus (COVID-19) employment issues for reopening schools
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The Government has published guidance on the wider opening of schools in September. Its primary focus is clear – to ensure that all children are back in school in the autumn with education settings working at full capacity. The guidance issued by the DfE poses a number of challenges for schools.
- BREXIT: What employers should be doing in readiness for the end of free movement on 31 December 2020
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On 31 January 2020 the UK left the EU and entered a transition period, during this time the UK remains bound by EU law including the right of freedom of movement within the EU. The transition period will end on 31 December 2020, following which a new immigration system treating EU nationals and non-EU nationals the same is expected to come into force.
- Disability Discrimination: treating two groups of workers with the same protected characteristic differently could amount to discrimination - VL (Case C-16/19)
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The Advocate General in a preliminary ruling for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has given an opinion that treating one group of disabled employees differently to another group of disabled employees could amount to a breach of Article 2 of The Equal Treatment Framework Directive (2000/78/EC).
- Holiday Pay: Harpur Trust v Brazel granted permission to proceed to the Supreme Court
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On 19 June 2020, the Supreme Court granted Harpur Trust permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s significant decision on calculating holiday pay for part-year workers. This decision especially impacted schools who employ many individuals for term time only and relied on applying the customary rate of 12.07% to calculate holiday pay for part-time and part-year workers, which the Court of Appeal ultimately held was incorrect.
- EAT decides whether an undertaking by an employer was a reasonable adjustment - Hill v Lloyds Bank plc
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The Employment Appeals Tribunal (‘EAT’) has held that an undertaking by an employer to give a disabled employee a severance package if her request not to work with certain colleagues was not possible, would have been a reasonable adjustment.
- Continuous Employment: EAT holds unofficial work undertaken before an employee’s start date does not count towards continuous employment - O’Sullivan v DSM Demolition Ltd
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The Employment Appeals Tribunal (‘EAT’) dismissed a Claimant’s claim for unfair dismissal on the basis that unofficial work for his employer before his formal start date did not count towards a period of continuous service. The required two years’ service for an unfair dismissal claim was therefore not satisfied.
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